{"id":125948,"date":"2025-08-07T09:14:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T09:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/125948\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T09:14:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T09:14:13","slug":"delusional-man-not-liable-for-wifes-death-b-c-court-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/125948\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Delusional\u2019 man not liable for wife\u2019s death, B.C. court rules"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t\t\t\tBy Staff<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Canadian Press\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tPosted August 6, 2025 9:55 pm\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>1 min read<\/strong>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tDescrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tIncrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>The B.C. Supreme Court says a Chilliwack, B.C., man who stabbed his wife to death in 2024 was suffering from a \u201cdelusional belief\u201d when the violent killing occurred, finding him not criminally responsible for her murder.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/70c8fc80.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;width:1px;height:1px\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The court ruling posted online Wednesday says Joseph Berkiw, now 70, killed his wife, who can\u2019t be named under a publication ban, while believing he was \u201csaving her\u201d from being tortured or raped by people who were targeting the couple.<\/p>\n<p>It says Berkiw worked as a machinist and had become \u201cpreoccupied\u201d with concerns about not getting paid from his job, and began acting in unusual and paranoid ways in the lead-up to the killing.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-video__image\" alt=\"Click to play video: 'How do the courts define \u2018not criminally responsible\u2019?'\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/LT_NOT_CRIMINALLY_RESPO_OM01APWM.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\"   data-\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2:29<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHow do the courts define \u2018not criminally responsible\u2019?\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>The ruling says the couple lived with their adult son, who had called police over his father\u2019s \u201cbizarre behaviour\u201d on Jan. 8 and Jan. 12, 2024, but officers determined he didn\u2019t meet the criteria to be apprehended \u201cunder the Mental Health Act because nobody indicated he presented an immediate risk to himself or anyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\tTrending Now\n\t<\/p>\n<ul class=\"l-inlineStories__posts c-posts c-posts--inline \">\n<li class=\"c-posts__item\">\n\t\t\t<a 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alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tMexico\u2019s Sheinbaum says \u2018no need\u2019 for bilateral trade deal with Canada\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The court ruling says Berkiw attacked his wife with a knife on Jan. 17, stabbing her before being taken to the ground by his son, and she called police in \u201cextreme distress,\u201d telling the call-taker that her husband was mentally ill and \u201ctrying to kill everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"225\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/healthiq.jpg\" alt=\"Receive the latest medical news and health information delivered to you every Sunday.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tGet weekly health news<\/p>\n<p>Receive the latest medical news and health information delivered to you every Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>The ruling says Berkiw broke free of his son\u2019s grasp and got another knife, slashing his wife\u2019s throat and cutting his son, who had tried to protect her, and the court found he was suffering from a mental disorder that included \u201cdelusional beliefs\u201d that rendered him \u201cincapable of knowing that his actions were morally wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore on Health<br \/>\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t&amp;copy 2025 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Staff The Canadian Press Posted August 6, 2025 9:55 pm 1 min read Descrease article font size&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":125949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2147,210,8142,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-125948","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-justice","11":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114986723926814161","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}